


fled is that music—do i wake or sleep?

by prophecies



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Eventual Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Spiral Avatar Martin Blackwood, Time Travel Fix-It, all of them are trans it hasn't come up yet but just know that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:28:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26732860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prophecies/pseuds/prophecies
Summary: The world remade. Time swirls, reality distorts, and what-was and what-wasn't become what-could-be, and as the Archivist closes their Eyes, the story is rewritten at the whim of a Poet.Martin wakes up.---Martin's been having odd dreams, lately.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 55





	1. was it a vision or a waking dream?

The world remade. Time swirls, reality distorts, and what-was and what-wasn't become what-could-be, and as the Archivist closes their Eyes, the story is rewritten at the whim of a Poet.

Martin wakes up.

There's a second where he has no idea where he is, mind fogged by the remains of a very confusing, barely remembered dream. Then, it hits him: He's at the institute. He fell asleep in the archives.  _ Shit _ . Jon is going to kill him, and he doesn't even know how long it's been. He gets up, looking around. He's in one of the smaller rooms in the Archives, mostly boxes of unsorted statements.

Why was he here, why was he here... Was he supposed to be finding a statement?  _ Shit, shit, shit. _ He'll ask Tim and hope he knows, he'd  _ really  _ rather not get yelled at by Jon.

He finds Tim in the main room. He's sitting at his desk talking to a smiling woman with long, dark hair in braids and round glasses. He...doesn't know who that is. 

Tim looks up at him, hearing him step in, about to speak before looking surprised.  "Martin! When'd you dye your hair? Swear I didn't notice that this morning."

Martin stared at him. He didn't dye his hair? He pulls a lock of it taut, trying to see the colour. It's dark brown, as usual. He pulls another, just to make sure, and it's...pink. Cotton candy pink. Did he dye it? When did he dye it? Martin tries to remember buying hair dye, or going to a hairdresser, and realises he doesn't remember much of the past few days at all.

The woman looks at him, tilting her head slightly. "...Are you okay, Martin?"

"Y-Yeah, I, I — I'm sorry who, who are you?" Martin's mouth feels dry.

Tim laughs, a hint of bafflement to his voice. The woman looks a bit lost for a moment. "Ssssasha? Sasha James? Are you sure you're alright?"

Sasha. Sasha James. Martin remembers something. Sasha, short and blonde and not wearing glasses.  _ I see you. _ Tunnels beneath the institute, running and running and his hands. Sasha, the real Sasha, and Tim talking on the tape and this isn't  _ healthy _ , Jon. A carousel, going round and round and round and there she is, what-was and what-was-never Sasha James, grinning.  _ Ceaseless Watcher, turn your gaze upon this _ —

"...I  _ really  _ need to- to file something right now," Martin said, and he turned around and nearly ran out of the room.

Martin was standing in the bathroom. He stared at himself in the mirror. He looks like himself. Younger? No, he looks, he looks 28. He is 28. He has been 28. He's wearing a yellow sweater that he bought last week and that he hasn't worn in a year. He has a streak of bright pink hair. It's him. He recognises himself, but he's wrong. He's never dyed his hair before.

He took a breath. He's never had a great memory. He's on medication, but really, it just helps him focus. His memory has remained as sad as ever. He probably just...did it on impulse one night and forgot about it. As for him forgetting Sasha...

Well. This is a stressful job.

Martin decides not to think about carousels, or circuses, or people who aren't themselves. Instead, he's going to be thinking about filing and making tea. He's good at those. Martin leaves, trying to pull his sanity together long enough to be useful today.

He apologises to Tim and Sasha about earlier when he brings them tea, making up a lie about he was tired, and a bit stressed and, well. He lies about dying his hair last night, you know, just for a change, the dye was on sale, so he figured why not. Tim says it's a nice colour on him and Sasha agrees. Martin forgets for a moment about earlier, spending a few minutes chatting with Tim and Sasha and — It's nice. Some part of him feels almost sad talking to them, something tugging in his chest when Tim laughs and Sasha smiles, but well, that's a problem for him to think about later.

He almost doesn't go into Jon's office. He doesn't know why, really. He just... he worries. He's worried. Some irrational part of his brain is afraid that he'll open the door and, and... Jon won't be there. Just him, Alone, at the end.

...

Martin suddenly feels a bit more mentally ill than usual. If Jon isn't in there, then well, he's probably further into the archives, or...maybe he took a lunch break for once. That'd do him some good, he spends way too much time in his office, sometimes Martin worries that he doesn't always actually leave at night. Martin takes a breath, knocks, turns the handle, and opens the door.

Jon looked up for a moment, dark hair pinned back in a messy bun. His eyes are black, like dark pools luring you in, and —  _ God _ , being gay is  _ inconvenient _ .

"Martin," he says in vague acknowledgement, looking down at whatever he was reading.

Martin feels something. He's not sure what, and he's not sure he wants to unpack it in Jon's office holding a cup of tea, anyway.

"I got you tea." He did. He walks over to Jon's desk, placing the cup and making sure not to put it on any paper. He knows Jon doesn't like it; The Eye's protectiveness of its statements, and all that.

Martin takes a moment to wonder what the fuck the capital-e Eye is. Jon looks back up as Martin realises he's probably overstaying his welcome.

"...Are you going to keep staring at me, or are you going to go do your work?" Jon's tone has a bite to it. Martin's used to it. He is, really.

"Right, right, yeah, sorry." He takes a step back, preparing to leave.

"What did you do to your hair?"

"Um. It's pink!"

Jon narrows his eyes. "I can see that. Is — Does Elias let you do that?"

Martin goes quiet for a moment. He lets out a nervous little laugh. "...I don't know! If not, then, uh, I guess he'll tell me?"

Jon stares at him for another moment. Martin has the idle thought that he thought Jon had longer hair. Jon mutters a, "Right," and looks back down at his desk.

"Did you find that statement?"

...Fuck. He was—he was going to ask Tim about that, and, and Sasha, and he forgot. Idiot.

Martin laughs a bit nervously, wishing he could disappear. Dematerialise, or something. "...I, I'm sorry, I, what...what statement was it?"

Jon looks at him the way his mom does, which is to say, sort of like he's looking at roadkill.

"The Carlos Vittery statement. That I told you to find three hours ago?"

Right! That statement that he has no memory of! Of course! Stupid Martin, and his lack of telepathic mind-reading abilities.

"R-right, I was, looking for that, I'll—I'll find it."

Jon waves his hand dismissively. "I'll get Tim to find it. The archives still need organising, so you can just do that."

Filing. Something even Martin should be able to do.

"Okay! I'll, uh, I'll do that," he says, wondering if he could will himself to sink into the floor if he tried hard enough.

"...You can leave, Martin."

"Okay! Uhm, bye, Jon." Martin leaves like he's being chased out.

\---

He's been having  _ visions _ . It sounds sort of... _ spooky  _ when he puts it like that, but, well, it is. It's strange. They feel real, like memories. But they  _ aren't  _ real, he knows that. Things that never happened, people he never met. They're vague and fleeting, never detailed enough for him to quite make out what it means, if it means anything.  He's been trying to write them out. It's kind of like a, a weird dream journal, really. If they mean something, maybe he can figure it out. If not...might be able to work it into his poetry, somehow, if nothing else. He's seen Sasha. He's seen Sasha, but different; Not-Sasha, a creature wearing her name. He thinks something happens to Tim, in his...alleged prophetic visions, and Jon. Oh,  _ Jon _ .

He's always had a bit of a...well, a bit of a crush on his boss. Just a small thing, really. So he has a type. It's not like he's in  _ love  _ with him. But. As of late, things have been different. It doesn't feel like just a...a fleeting crush anymore. It feels like something more, something sadder, almost. It's starting to become a bit of a problem, and Martin's notebooks are beginning to have a few too many half-finished bits of melancholic poetry about dark eyes and low voices. He's been used to his boss being kind of a prick, a  _ pretty  _ prick but a prick nevertheless, but recently? Well.

He's been...trying to talk less to Jon. Figures a bit of distance might help, but, he  _ is  _ still his boss. He can't just  _ avoid  _ him all day. But Martin's a good liar, and so he manages to pretend nothing's changed. And if he hears things like  _ yes, Martin, you are my reason, _ in his dreams, then. They're just dreams, aren't they? He'll live.

Still, they bother him. He forgets things, sometimes, forgets what is real and what isn't. Once, he said something about how Jon rode on a carousel, once in his twenties, and he thinks about that sometimes because it's oddly kind of endearing. He only afterwards remembered that there's no way he could possibly know that, and why would  _ Jon  _ tell  _ him  _ that, anyway? Tim asked Jon when he came out of his office, and he said something like  _ wh- how do you know that? _ And Tim said something about having psychic powers and grinned at Martin.

They're just dreams, probably. It was just a guess. Maybe Jon just really seems like the kind of guy who'd consider carousels thrilling! He can see it.

Honestly, the dreams, daydreams, visions, whatever you want to call them, have less of an impact on his life than you'd expect. He files, makes tea, occasionally has long-winded discussions of poetry with Sasha, avoids going to the institute's holiday party—it's a Christmas party, whatever Elias says, and Martin is not Christian—and is occasionally plagued with strange visions of a mysterious future. That's life.

Aside from the strange visions as mentioned earlier, his life's pretty typical until he thinks more about the Carlos Vittery statement. After Tim found it, Jon had recorded it, and the rest of them had at least skimmed it. It was...unsettling, to say the least. Jon doesn't think it's anything. Martin actually believes in the supernatural, considering they all work at the Magnus Institute, and doesn't really believe it was just...made up. The man was found dead in his apartment covered in  _ web _ . Spiders don't  _ do  _ that.

He wants to follow up on the statement. Jon rarely assigns him to follow up statements, and especially wouldn't on this one, but... That doesn't mean he can't do it. The only problem is...it loops back to those visions, really.  _ A woman, dark-haired and thin, greyish skin covered in holes like a honeycomb, things crawling, burrowing. _ He feels like that woman (Jane Prentiss, from the Timothy Hodge statement?) has something to do with this. But. If so, what is he going to  _ do  _ about it? Just not bother following up on it? If he managed to find some sort of proof that he's right about the statement, maybe...

Maybe Jon would stop thinking he's an idiot. Probably not. He probably is an idiot, really. He's going to try either way. And if he is killed by some sort of _bug monster_? So be it! He won't be missed.


	2. nothing ever becomes real til experienced

Martin took a knife. Sure, he doesn't think he'd just be able to  _ stab  _ an evil bug monster until it leaves him alone, but it makes him feel a bit better. He tried buzzing the apartment, but no one answered, which didn't surprise him at all for whatever reason. But there was a window leading to the basement, and he's already  _ here, _ so he's not going to stop now.

When he enters the basement, it's dark. A bit of light filtering in, casting a dark shadow across the floor. Martin's shadow, but something about it seems off. The longer he looks at it, the more  _ colours _ he sees, not just black but blue and green and red and pink and yellow and colours he's never seen before, a kaleidoscope that light can't touch-

He didn't  _ come here _ for that. Martin pulls himself out of  _ that _ apparent daydream, looking around. There are a few dead worms on the floor, immobile silver husks of larvae, with sharp stab wounds in them, as if they were skewered on something. The basement appears to stretch under the whole apartment, wide and dark, grey walls and grey flooring.

Looking up towards the wall in front of him, he sees the one thing here that isn't grey. It's a door. A yellow door. He figures it leads up the stairs or something. He walks over to it, seeing if he can open it, and- It's locked. Unsurprising, but inconvenient. He's sort of worried about those worms, with how  _ familiar  _ they seem, and with him not knowing precisely  _ what _ killed them, but... There doesn't seem to be anything else of relevance in here.

So, he knocks. And waits, and waits, and knocks again, and eventually figures he's not getting anywhere with this and turns to see if there's anything in here that he missed or if this was a waste of time.

And that's when it opens.

A long, pale hand reaches out, pushing the door open. Martin stares, dumbstruck, as a tall man with long, bleach-blonde hair steps out, the edges of their silhouette distorted. Their shadow looks _ wrong _ , the same colours as Martin's, but stick thin, the hands are large and pointed, everything off in a way he can't describe. The door shuts behind them.

"I  _ knew _ you'd come here, Assistant!" Their voice was sharp, too loud and too quiet, and Martin had to fight the instinct to cover his ears.

"You- You did? I, uh, do- Do we know each other?" Martin doesn't think he knows any weird door-people, but he didn't recognise Sasha, so who knows.

They laugh like Martin just told a joke. It trails off into a sigh, and they say "Do we," looking at Martin with a grin. "I don't believe we've met. But you'd know better than I."

Okay. That doesn't make any sense. "...Right! Uhm. What-- I'm sorry if this is rude. What are you?"

They tilted their head, seeming to ponder on that question for a moment. "How would a melody describe itself, if asked?"

Martin blinks. "...Not in any way people would understand, I don't think."

They seem...pleased with that answer, he thinks. "Exactly. If you must give me a name, then...I was once called Michael."

"Michael. You don't...you don't look like a Michael- I think I've seen you before. With bigger...hands?"

Michael stares at him for a moment. Then, they lift a hand, and it  _ grows _ . It is a terrifying thing to watch happen, and Martin nearly falls over at the sight of it. Their fingers are long and sharp, pointed at the ends like claws. Is that what happened to the worms?

"Oh! Okay!" Martin's voice sometimes goes cheery when he's...scared, angry, whatever. It makes lying a bit easier, usually. "You, uh." He laughs a little. "I don't think we met here."

"Probably not," Michael said. "The flesh-hive would have been here if I hadn't intervened. I am too..." Michael was quiet for a moment, thinking on their words. "... _ Curious _ , to let her take you so quickly."

The flesh-hive? The, the woman he saw...ah. Michael did kill those worms, then. He wasn't sure if he wanted to know if they killed  _ her _ , too, or only made her leave.

"...What are you...curious about, then?" Martin says slowly,  _ very _ nervous but also a bit  _ curious  _ himself.

"You!" Michael says, still grinning widely. Michael has too many teeth, Martin thinks.

"Me!" Martin responds, absolutely confused. He starts messing with his hair, a bit idly, twirling the part of his bangs that's pink. He gets the feeling they'll be talking for a bit, and it's honestly kind of disappointing how there's...very little of anything  _ here _ , not counting the worm corpses. "Wish they had, I don't know, a- a table or something in here."

Then there was a table in there. Two chairs too, actually. Martin just stares in silence. He doesn't know what to say. Michael flops into a chair, leaning their head in their hands and looking at Martin.

"Once, everything seemed to...change, suddenly," Michael starts as if they hadn't just manifested furniture into this basement. "Time is _difficult_ , but it was...months...ago, perhaps? I felt it. And you became Marked."

"Marked," Martin repeats, pulling a chair out and sitting. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Michael gave Martin a look. "...I don't often try to be  _ understood. _ This is...difficult for me." They stared at Michael for a few more moments, and Martin watches their eyes change colours. "You are Marked by It-Is-Not-What-It-Is. I have never seen you before. You have seen me before. Why is this, assistant?"

"...Huh. Well, uh. I keep having, like...daydreams? Sometimes actual dreams? About...whatever? I'm not wording this very well. I've seen you there." Martin pauses. "I-I mean, I know it's not very  _ believable _ that I'm having, what,  _ prophetic visions,  _ but..." He trails off once he realises he's talking to a strange, definitely-not-human door-person who just manifested a table in front of him.

Michael tilts their head. "Hm." They then proceed to reach over, startling Martin quite a lot, and pull off a strand of his hair.

" _ Ow! _ Okay, don't do that."

"Sorry," Michael says, and Martin didn't actually expect them to respond to that much less apologise. They then just look at the little pink strand between their fingers and Martin suddenly realises how fucking  _ bizarre _ this all is. What is he doing? Should he tell Jon about this? Presuming that Michael doesn't skewer him by the end of this.

"I think I want to be friends."

"...Oh?" Martin starts. "Uh- I— Why?"

They  _ eat _ the strand of hair. Martin sits there and watches them eat a strand of their hair like a ramen noodle. This is his life. "You are unusual. I've decided that I... _ like? _ You." The way they say  _ like _ is uncertain, a hint of amused bafflement in it as if  _ liking _ something is such a strange, novel little thing.

"Huh. Uhm. Oookay, yeah. Friends, then!" He's not sure what  _ befriending _ them entails.

Michael's smiled during their entire conversation almost, but they seem to grin wider now. "You are strange, assistant."

"Hm? I like to think I'm, uh, friendly."

"You're afraid. Yet you don't act like it."

Martin paused for a moment. He is. Of course he is, he doesn't know what Michael is. He lies anyway. "Not really? Should I be?"

Michael laughed again. Grating. "Yes," they said, half a sigh. "Yes, I should think so."

"...But we're, we're friends, aren't we?"

They stood up, and Martin was afraid he  _ was _ going to be skewered on a claw.

"I suppose we are. I think we'll be meeting again, Martin Blackwood. Get something other than peaches on your way home."

Martin honestly had no idea what  _ peaches _ had to do with anything. He was about to ask when Michael was not there. Neither was the door. Martin sat there, on a chair that only very recently began to exist, before deciding to leave. He might come back, see if he really can manage to find anything on the case, but... Well, he's a bit exhausted after that.

\---

Martin was beginning to understand what Michael meant about the peaches.

He's been here before. He knows that, heard the knocking, already spent nights lying awake listening to it, checking his arms for anything burrowing. He's been here before, but what can he do with that knowledge, now? Jane Prentiss is probably going to kill him. He doesn't want to die like that.

He lost his phone. Dropped it while he was running to his flat, too occupied with not getting eaten to pick it back up. Plus, the power had been out, which was lovely. It was dark, and he was alone in his flat, always vigilant in case a worm had gotten in. He remembers he survived this, once. He just hopes that he manages again.

As time goes on, the boredom and the loneliness is almost worse than the worms. He reads, rereading the same paperback poetry books over and over. Knock, knock, knock, goes Jane. She hasn't said a word, just knocked, but Martin can almost feel her singing. He hasn't seen another person in nearly a week.

The next few nights, when he manages to sleep, he has dreams about numbness and grey fog.  _ Even the fear is gentle here. _

Martin is almost tempted to open the door by the time the knocking finally stops. 

That rotting smell is gone, and the room's silent. Martin spends a few hours anxiously waiting to see if he sees a worm of hears another knock before he manages to convince himself to finally open it. When he does, there's no one there. She's gone.

Martin only cries a little bit before he makes it to the institute.

"I need to make a statement," he says, stepping into the Archives fully aware he looks and probably sounds like shit, especially with the way everyone's looking at him.

"Martin? Are you—You look kind of bad?" Sasha says helpfully, Martin recognizing her after only a moment.

"I do! But I'm not full of worms!" He goes into Jon's office, where the man himself was writing  _ something  _ while listening to the most bizarre music Martin's ever heard in his life. Some sort of electronic music with a...weirdly high pitched singer? Something about a horse?

Jon looks up, quickly turning off the music and clearly trying to glare at Martin. "You know how to _ knock _ , Martin," he bites.

"I've heard enough knocking the past week to, to last the rest of my life," Martin responds, sitting in the chair in front of Jon's desk and taking a deep breath. "I, I need to make a statement."

"I, A statement? I thought you were—were out sick?"

Martin laughs a bit. It isn't funny. "I wasn't."

"...Right," Jon says, taking out a tape recorder and clicking it on. "Martin, are you sure about this?"

"I just want to make a statement about what happened to me. I mean, it... it's what we do." He feels like he's been here before, saying this. He's thought that a lot recently.

"No, what we do is research statements. Usually, those made by liars and the mentally unwell."

He feels a bit like he's both of those. He's not going to say that. "Well, I need to tell someone what happened, and you can vouch for the soundness of my mind, can't you?"

Jon paused. Of course. "That is beside the point."

"If you're that worried about it," Martin began, "it doesn't need to be an  _ official _ statement. I just need a record of it."

"...Fine. You're right, I suppose. Statement of Martin Blackwood, archival assistant at the Magnus Institute, London, regarding..."

"...Encounters with the beings known as Michael and what I believe to be Jane Prentiss."

The statement began. Martin was planning to focus on Jane; His conversation with Michael was...strange, and mostly regarded his  _ memories. _ He didn't really expect Jon to believe him as-is, much less if he talked about  _ that.  _ But when Martin started speaking under Jon's gaze, the words just started to come out, whether he wanted them to or not. He told him about all of it, in detail.

"...and I ran...all the way here."

"Statement ends," says Jon. "You're sure about all this, Martin?"

"I'm not going to lie about something like this, Jon."

"...Very well. There are...some things in this statement I don't entirely believe, but. There's a room in the Archives I use to sleep when working late. I suggest you stay there for now. I'll talk to Elias about whether we can get extra security, but the Archives have enough locks for now. It's also supposed to be humidity controlled and, though it hasn't been working for some time, it does mean it's well-sealed. Nothing will be sneaking through any window cracks."

Martin wasn't sure what to say to that. "Okay...thanks. To be honest, I didn't, didn't expect you...to take it seriously."

"You say you lost your phone two weeks ago?"

"Thereabouts. When I was going to my flat."

"Well, in that time I have received several text messages from your phone, saying you were ill with stomach problems. The last one said that you thought it _'might be a parasite'_ , though my calls trying to follow up were never answered. So, if this does involve Jane Prentiss, then I take it deadly seri—"

Jon's phone started buzzing. "...Hang on." He took his phone out, and after a moment made a face at it.

"What?"

"I just received another text message. From you. 'Keep him. We have had our fun. He will want to see it when the Archivist's crimson fate arrives.'"

Ah! That's  _ ominous _ . "What's that mean?"

"It means I ask Elias to hire some extra security. I should probably warn Sasha and Tim as well. I'll also have a look through the Archives, as I believe we should have a statement from Ms Prentiss herself in here somewhere. Recording ends."

Jon turned off the tape.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> season 1 should be over soon? i think things will start becoming a bit more canon divergent from that point<3 you wouldn't believe how emotionally taxing it is to write season 1 jon like. calm down and have a snickers you rude little man

**Author's Note:**

> things get better. they get worse before they get better, but this is supposed to be a fix-it fic, martin just insists on having a bad day


End file.
